Athlon64 or prescot?

[borat]

im in the market for a new core system, im goint to get a WD raptor, plextor DVD burner, and need a new CPU motherboard and memory. Im want to go for the fastest system i can get mainly to get the last ounce out of my parhelia. I will be overclocking whatever i get as far as i can, so the question is, will i see more benefit out of a high FSB dual memory channel prescot, or a single channel but tight memory timed A64?the price of both will be very similar.(when have you ever been able to say that about intel and AMD in the past!)

[Byock]

I would go with the AMD64. The Prescott is much like the early P4's. Until the clock speed is much higher, it will not be all that impressive. IMHO.

[rylan]

Athlon64 easy

[GNEP]

What about a much cheaper Mobile Barton 2500+? Apparently they're unlocked and you can push them to 2.6GHz (>>3200+ speed) with the right mobo and some extra voltage (the mobile ones are default at 1.45V IIRC). Bargain of the moment in AMD land.

Then do the equivalent in 8-9 months time with whatever is bargainous at the time. Thus you spend less overall and end up with something much quicker at the end of the year, probably a newer A64 which by then should be more overclockable I reckon and probably in a new socket too

[borat]

ben looking into that too gnep, severly tempted by it, but i only have an asus a7V333, so id be running with a low FSB, would save a lot of £'s by going down this route. What tempts me tp spend a bit more is that my brother is going to america at the ned of march, and with the current exchange rate with the $, the upgrade will probably cost around 60% of the UK price. Like you say though, if i were to wait 6-12months before doing a major upgrade, id be getting a new socket, DDR-2 and maybe even an intel 64 bit offering. I cant decide whether its genuinly a bad time to buy, or ive just got a case of thinking that something better is always around the corner

[Admiral]

The socket 939 Athlon 64 is just around the corner, to be revealed at Cebit at the end of March. It's also rumored to support dual channel but it has half the cache of a socket 754 A64.

[K6-III]

Athlon64, no doubt!

[Adis]

Intel forever!

[piaxVirus]

I think the Parhelia's performance levels off with CPUs at around the 2500+ level. I don't think a faster CPU will make much difference in most games. Only those that are really CPU intensive.

[az]

Prescott is SLOWER than pre-prescott P4s, clock for clock, and MUCH hotter. So IF you want to get a P4, do NOT get a Prescott!

AZ

[rylan]

Yeah Prescott is a portable space heater with less performance.

Oh and btw I have a Barton core 2500+ that clocks faster than 3200+ speeds at default voltage. Pretty much all of the 2500+ chips will really fly.

[Chrono_Wanderer]

A64, 745 version if u need a computer right now.

if u can wait for a quarter, then wait for the 939